Worth the Wait
by tklivory
Summary: After a difficult decision, Marian Hawke returns home to ponder the ramifications of her choice. Aveline offers her some advice... and then gives her much more than simple advice.


**_A/N: _**_This piece was written per request, and involves a very non-canon, AU pairing of Dragon Age 2._

_._

_._

_The wait is long, my dream of you does not end._

**- **Nuala O'Faolain, _My Dream of You_

_._

_._

* * *

The dagger clattered into the empty washbasin, begrimed with blood and pain still. Though she didn't quite register the sight of it, her eyes were locked on it, conflicted between using the blood and washing it away. Her eyes slid shut as she allowed the music in the blood to wash over her, resonating at a level that only another mage could possibly comprehend: the song of the taint, the melody of the demon, the dirge of Justice and the elegy of one she had considered a friend… The blood was thick with portent, with magic, and, now, with death: a death she had delivered with her own hand.

_It was the least she could do for a friend._

Her hand spread wide as she opened her ice-blue eyes to regard it, remembering the many times she had drawn the dagger across that expanse of fragile flesh to call forth the sweet power that lay in her veins. Oh, how she had scoffed at the others for their fear of little Merrill, of the templars' blind and stubborn insistence that down that path lay only evil and a corruption worse than any Abomination… yet what was more abominable, more heinous, than killing one who had placed his full trust in you? Trust and, she often suspected, something else.

The tears filled her eyes, though they did not fall. Before she could change her mind, she grabbed the pitcher of water next to the basin and poured it over the blade and her hands, using the nearby soapstone and bristle to scrub away the blood, the memory, and the guilt. The tears began to fall when she realized that only the first could be worn away, and only in the eyes of others. Her eyes, and her mind, would always see his blood on her hands and on her knife.

When the hand gently touched her shoulder, she convulsed, hand crackling with energy even before she realized who it was. Turning, she saw blue light flickering on fair, freckled skin and blue eyes, the look of concern in that practical face not shaken by the startling manner with which Hawke had greeted her.

"I wanted to see how you were doing," Aveline said earnestly as the lightning faded, leaving them again in the dimness of the Hawke estates. "I know that was not easy for you." Her lips firmed into a line. "Believe me when I say I know what it is to kill one you care for because it is… necessary."

Instantly Hawke's face softened, and her hand unthinkingly reached for Aveline's face. "I remember."

"I just… I'm proud of you," the warrior said. Though she wore no armor and bore no blade at the moment, Hawke could almost feel Aveline fall into the role of Captain of the Guard, sounding exactly like a superior officer complimenting a recruit on a job well done. Oddly enough, she didn't pull away from Hawke's touch as she had so many times before. "Doing what is right is not always easy, and… I've questioned you, sometimes, these last few years, I'll admit that - well, you must have seen it."

Turning from the red-tinged water in the basin to face Aveline fully, she shifted a bit closer, pleased when Aveline held her ground. "I've noticed a great many things," she murmured. "I noticed that you expended great effort in recent years to gain the favor of my silly little Mabari - far more effort than any of my other friends. I noticed that my estates are always guarded frequently - even, sometimes, by the Captain of the Guard herself." She moved forward again, her thumb moving slightly to rest at the corner of Aveline's stubborn yet twitching mouth. "I noticed that you turned down a certain proposal to marry."

For a moment, she paused. Anders had been a friend… and no more, no matter what Isabela liked to tease her about. Years of lonely nights and a persistently empty bed had tested her resolve to wait for a certain someone to be ready, but she knew that in this case, impatience was the surest way to permanent disappointment. Now, however…

_So much fighting, so much death…_ Again, the sound of Anders' body hitting the ground snapped through her mind, followed by a sudden resurgent need to know life.

Preferably, in the arms of someone strong, capable, methodical… and _here_.

"I noticed that you aren't wearing anything underneath that rather plain homespun," she breathed, just before she wrapped her hand around the back of Aveline's head. Twining her fingers into the ponytail, she laid her lips on Aveline's, not demanding, not pressuring, merely offering. The woman smelled of soap and clean linen, the faintest hint of leather from her headband touching the edges of scent in Hawke's nostrils as she waited to see how Aveline would respond. It was an act of boldness inspired by her need for the warmth of the living, born of hope and lust and desire.

For a moment, Aveline froze, though Hawke felt her breath hitch. The lips that touched hers, a bit dry from the hours spent outside in the course of her job, twitched in surprise, and she felt the woman's body stiffen. Taking the tension for rejection, she loosened her fingers and began to pull away, her mouth already open in apology.

The apology died, unuttered, as strong hands wrapped around her face and drew her in, Aveline's advantage in height giving her an additional benefit when it came to claiming someone for a passionate kiss. Giving herself completely to the sensation, Hawke barely noticed as she was pushed back into the wall, though her hands did reach up reflexively to grab the sconce on the wall above her as her knees threatened to give way. The passion that Aveline applied to her work, to her weaponscraft, to her implacable will to do what was right: all that passion was also applied in this moment.

As the slightly rough lips began moving over her face, trailing over her cheeks and neck, strong hands also began pulling and tugging at the robe wrapped around her target. Her fingers tightened around the metal above her, almost painfully so, as the sound of ripping cloth suddenly echoed in the hall and she felt the dank chill of Kirkwall touch her now bare skin.

"That— that was an— expensive robe," she gasped, though the words became meaningless as strong fingers suddenly closed around her breast, kneading and massaging the spare but soft flesh they found, and she heard her gasps echoing off the stone walls almost before she knew she was making them. The tears still wet her face, but something else had replaced the feelings that had caused them, and as her nipple was pinched and tugged, the need grew into a hunger. Moaning, she leaned into the touch, wordlessly asking for more.

And, as she had well learned over the years, Aveline was always up to a challenge.

She felt teeth begin a path of tight, small bites, starting on her lower lip and working their way down, leaving a trail of warm moisture in their wake. Her pulse accelerated as they passed over her throat, just as her heart sped up when those delightfully coarse lips moved over sensitive flesh usually protected by mage robes from both eyes and sun. She pushed away from the wall slightly as her breasts were suckled and nibbled, tasted and teased, and she looked down at the red hair hovering at her chest, dropping one hand to sink into those thick tresses even as a clever tongue swirled around her breast and began to move again, continuing its path downward.

Her hips began to buck as the tongue and teeth worked at her stomach, working over every soft curve, and now Aveline's hands came up and wrapped themselves on Hawke's full hips, smoothing over the full curves she found as her face rested for a moment against the fullness of Hawke's abdomen. "Not a warrior," she murmured, a gleam of appreciation in her eyes as one of her hands settled over the pouting curve that spoke not of constant weapons-work outdoors but intense study inside, though her fingers rested tantalizingly close to the patch of brown hair below that yearned for further attention. Hawke almost objected to the seeming interruption, but again that need to allow Aveline her time got the better of her.

As Aveline continued to touch and explore, her warm breath fell across Hawke's abdomen, causing her to shiver helplessly, and the redhead smiled. "Not a soldier. Not someone to give orders to, or correct, or judge, or sentence." Her fingers kneaded deep into the soft flesh for a moment, then moved down and began to explore the hair it found, searching for what lay hidden in the cleft beneath. "Someone to come to in times of need, someone to be with when no one else will open their arms, someone who will forgive a change in plans no matter how many times duty calls me away…" Glancing up, her eyes met Hawke's just as her fingers found what they sought. Gently she began to rub, and Hawke's grip on the sconce above her head failed completely.

Aveline's strong arm caught her as she fell, laying her gently on the floor as deft fingers continued their work. "Someone who, I know, will one day repay me for every favor I've ever done for her."

Hawke didn't answer as the tension continued to build deep within her, but when Aveline stopped talking and applied her tongue elsewhere, she knew that she would, indeed, repay every single favor tenfold, even if it took her to her dying breath to do so.

She would have to start, of course, with the many little deaths she suffered through that night, the pain from earlier completely forgotten in the warmth of life and love.


End file.
